When Vickie Wang, a rising performer, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not just thinking about which jokes to deliver. She also weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from directly criticizing the administration,” she stated. And when she does, she ensures it's not recorded for online platforms. “I'd never publicly share content where I directly criticize authorities … I think this is a habit from China.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she relocated to America. When she got there, she dove into a frenzy of “overindulging on freedom,” going to lectures, protests, and delving into the city's library system.
However over the past year after the president was elected again, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood where the line was, while in the US I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s concerns reflect an emerging political reality in America which many Chinese, or people with experience in the country, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The president expects total allegiance. Reporters face scrutiny. Establishments are attacked.
Trump has not been shy regarding his respect for Xi Jinping, the nation's strongman leader. He has described him as “fantastic”. As they agreed a brief ceasefire in economic tensions recently, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in America that improved relations with China could assist the growing nation become more open, under Trump 2.0, it appears as if America is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Trump, is attempting to mobilise the masses to sideline or weaken established figures … similar to what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration unleashed what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy early on of his term, numerous Chinese observers see US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Be it the mobilisation of young people to carry out presidential directives, or purging institutions of those deemed opposition, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to America, though without equivalent degrees of force.
However after the upheaval of the initial period under Trump has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has settled in the country, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and the East is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a CCP critic, found himself in a controversy recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US for several years, having fled the country due to pressure from officials.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was a “scumbag”. Similar to others nationwide – who were fired as a result of making negative comments about Kirk – Deng faced a huge backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing could happen in the United States – what typically happens in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
His pile on came from online peers, instead of the government, but such of public monitoring also has parallels with China.
“In terms of targeting dissenters and monitoring open discourse about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” said an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East now as well,” she said, stating that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a form of surveillance that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to the US for political inspiration, since public debate on internal affairs in China is dangerous. However, “The US is no longer some kind of god for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened generally.”
“We once viewed America as the symbol of constitutional democracy, but after Trump took power, that guide appears less luminous”.
Chinese liberals, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than America’s, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but after the pandemic, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and investing in hi-tech,” Zhang said, while “Western nations, exemplified by America, appear declining.”
The government's purchase of stakes in US companies has also drawn comparisons with the East, where the line between state and business is often blurred.
Recently, authorities announced it will take an investor in a startup specialising in rare earth processing, following comparable shares in additional firms deemed vital to the country's safety. These moves have made some investors nervous that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between Trump’s America and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that required reporting solely on government-authorised news. American judiciary have blocked or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that is impossible in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, specializing in China, commented: “America might face its gravest challenge of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
Zhang notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see American colleges yield to government demands concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on university grounds, in the East, leading institutions are publicly controlled by default. University leaders, who are appointed by the government, “cannot of saying no. They dare not to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once vocal on bilateral matters declined to be interviewed for this article. He stated: “Honestly, I am scared of suppression in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
